name was Giovan Antonio, for nothing can make the C into a G. I am inclined to think that they mark the association which the artist clearly intended in this picture between himself and the poet Girolamo Casio. On the back of the panel is painted a skull with the inscription INSIGNE SVM IERONYMI CASII. This Casio died young after a career full of romantic adventure. He was a friend of Boltraffio, to whom he addressed a sonnet, and his portrait—a laureated profile-occurs in the large altarpiece by the master in the Louvre. Boltraffio may have intended to point the moral here that the fair face of friendship is after all modelled on a skull:1

Even such is time! who takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,

And pays us but with earth and dust.

Somewhat akin to this in sentiment is the remarkable picture at Alnwick attributed to Schidone, but unquestionably by Lotto, in which a Cupid places a leafy crown upon a skull.

The Belisarius, apart from its conspicuous merit as a painting, has the interest of a problem still unsolved. It was originally ascribed to Van Dyck, though the truth of this was doubted as early as the time of Walpole, who writes: "At Chiswick is the well known Belisarius, though very doubtful if by the hand of Van Dyck." It is now ascribed to Murillo, probably on the authority of Waagen, who noted that "the conception, the silvery tone and the dark shadows agree more with Murillo." Neither solution of the problem is, in my judgment, satisfactory. If it be by Van Dyck, it must have been painted during his Italian period, for there is not a trace of his Flemish or English manner; but in Italy it was the splendour and harmony of Venice that attracted him, and the types of our picture—not to speak of its pervading gloom-are as different as possible from his. As to the features to which Waagen alludes, they are rather Spanish in general than Murillo's in particular. On the whole, the conditions of the problem point to a Genoese origin. This would account not only for the seemingly Spanish quality of the picture, but also, perhaps, for its old association with Van Dyck. It has much in common with the style of Valerio Castelli.

[Dr. Frizzoni has kindly informed the editor that the skull in this picture is simply part of the coat of arms of the Casio family.]

It is at this point, namely where the orbits of Italian and Spanish art intersect, that we meet with Caravaggio. The two companion pictures of musicians-at Devonshire House-show him at his best, though not in his most ambitious mood. They are painted with photographic realism, and with that almost brutal sense of the coarse fibre of things that appears again in Spagnoletto and in the early essays of Velasquez.

From the hand of Velasquez himself we have a portrait that looks as if it were a preliminary study for the celebrated Lady with the Fan at Hertford House. "Who is she and whence comes she? Is it one of those Circes, for whom the jeunesse dorée of those days went to the dogs? or a Toledan flirt of the comedies, one of those who on receiving the holy water flashed back a glance that turned the heads of cavaliers on the eve of their wedding? A maze of coldness and fire, of bigotry and worldliness, of pride and coquetry, or worse?

" 1

The charming full length of a little girl is also ascribed to Velasquez, though the costume, type and treatment are all Flemish, and combine to indicate the real author, Cornelis de Vos.

The great glory of the Devonshire Collection is the triptych by Memlinc, whose art, always sweet and devout, is sometimes lacking in the gravity and virility which we enjoy here. Precious as a work of art, it is uniquely precious as an historical monument of the connection between our King Edward IV and the Bruges of Memlinc. To Mr. Weale belongs the credit of identifying the donors, who from the time of Walpole had been taken for members of the Clifford family. "Especially fine and full of expression are the portraits of the donor, Sir John Donne, and his wife Elizabeth, third and youngest daughter of Sir Leonard Hastings by his wife Alice, daughter of Thomas Lord Camoys. Both wear the badge of Edward IV, the collar of roses and suns, to the clasp of which is appended the white lion of the house of Marche.... Sir John was slain at the battle of Edgecote, 26 July, 1469. This triptych must have been painted between 1461, when Edward adopted the badge which Sir John and his wife are wearing, and 1469; probably in 1468, when a number of Yorkists came to Bruges to assist at the wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York."2